Emmerdale

[Slade]

I thought it was ridiculous how after Cain beat Pete up, he just let things drop with a simple text message saying "I'll find another supplier".

Anyway, since Debbie's turned into a bad girl, I haven't found her as annoying as I did previously. I guess her openly being a cow without the guise of her sick daughter means we don't have to automatically have sympathy for her. Surprisingly, I've quite enjoyed the scenes with her and Robbie. I know she's only using him but I wouldn't mind seeing those two get together. If anything it will be worth it to see Cain and Megan's reactions.

Even though it was completely unbelievable the way he just happened to guess that there was something going on with Charity and Declan in the Woolpack, sussed that they went outside to meet and figured out they slept together, I have ABSOLUTELY LOVED Cameron having Charity over a barrel. I couldn't stop smiling though all the scenes where he was threatening to expose her affair with Declan. Declan on the edge about what Cameron was going to do and the fear displayed by Charity and Declan when they were having dinner with Jai and Katie. It was really good to see Charity on the receiving end considering how vile she is. My main regret is that she fessed up to Jai, basically ruining everything. His reaction was very hypocritical though given what happened with Rachel. Not that I care he cheated on Charity first. I don't want him fessing up for the simple reason that if this leads to a divorce then Charity could potentially get her grubby hands on half of everything. I was disappointed Declan cheated (with her of all people) especially now that he and Katie are back on track and look happy even though I found his reaction when Jai confronted him and the way he kept phoning Jai in the episode afterwards very funny. What I find interesting is that Declan's done to Jai the same thing that Jai did to him, although at least Declan hasn't got Charity pregnant.

Really not keen on Vanessa. Just don't find anything likeable about her at all. Even when she was going out of her way to help Edna and Edna threw it back in her face, when she had a death in the family and even when Katie (who I thought was being quite harsh) blamed her for the horse's death and wanted Paddy and Rhona to fire her, I didn't have one bit of sympathy for her. I will say that I did like the way she acted as a go-between with Paddy and Rhona helping to get their marriage back on track, so maybe there's hope.

Funny, seems as though David has started to have genuine feelings for Alicia now that she appears to be moving on and has accepted she and David are over.

I found Sandy quite amusing this week. Especially the way he was with Laurel and Marlon and at his 80th birthday party. House sharing with Edna should be interesting...

[Red Ranger 1]

I've found Vanessa rather irritating a lot of the time and I don't think she's a good influence on Rhona, who's been pretty self-absorbed while she's been back.She does seem to have improved a bit lately though now that she's started supporting Paddy and Rhona being together.

Kind of come round to the idea of Sam and Rachel, they seem to make quite a sweet couple, even if the situation is massively messy.Glad that Jai seems to have backed off and stopped causing trouble for them, although there seems to be an awful lot of mutual blackmail, for want of a better word, going on.His attacking Charity for cheating was massively hypocritical, as he seemed to recognise, which is probably why he changed his mind.I do hope this doesn't cause trouble for Katie and Declan who seem to be on an even keel for pretty much the first time since they got married, Katie's "I'll never forgive Andy for cheating on me" seemed a bit hypocritical in itself given that she slept with Andy's brother the night before their wedding and several times afterwards and ended up moving in with him.

Cameron attacking Robbie turned out to be a bit of a damp squib.If they are going to keep Cameron around, they might as well have him bump off a few more irritating characters while he's here and walking in on them didn't seem to make Chas twig that she's shacked up with a homocidal maniac, even if she has bombed off to Paris.Debbie doesn't seem to do anything except sit around being nasty, although she does still look distressingly hot at times, and it's got to one of those situations where I don't really sympathise with anyone.

Actually quite liking Belle and Thomas together, I've kind of got used to the fact that Belle's boyfriends all seem to be older than her and Thomas seems to have moved out of his crazed stalker phase and become quite caring.What Sean and Gemma did was pretty off and did seem to be motivated largely by jealousy.I'm not sure how much they regret it either, they seemed to be more interested in blaming each other.

[irish_angel]

Just saw that Richard Thorp aka Alan Turner has passed away aged 81. Very sad

[Red Ranger 1]

Sad news about Richard Thorp.He had reached that stage where he was just making a token appearance every once in a while but he didn't look in too bad shape in his appearance this week.

I'm finding the show very frustrating at the moment.There are storylines that haven't moved forward all year.Debbie and Cameron's contribution seems to consist of "Debbie does something nasty and/or stupid, people have a go at her, she doesn't care, Cameron glares intensely and snaps at everyone, Chas threatens to leave him then changes her mind."For week after week after week.Please make it stop.

Similarly, Rishi announcing he's Archie's father just as Charity's on the verge of finally realising the truth.Why?Surely the whole point of a cover story is to cause less trouble than the truth?Surprised Rachel was so willing to have everyone believe she slept with a guy old enough to be her grandfather too.Same with David and Alicia.He tells her he wants her, then a week later he's back with Priya?! Just how long can you drag a storyline out?

What else is going on?Andy/Amy is a rather weird and random pairing but could work well.Vanessa seems to be becoming more likeable as Rhona seems to be heading in the opposite direction, at least she's acting vaguely like an adult now.

[Homeandawayfan.]

Kate Oates took over as producer from the dire Stuart Blackburn. This was January and her first episodes were screened in April and I had high hopes on her putting Emmerdale right and getting rid of the "EastEnders and Home And Away of the Yorkshire Dales" with crime, far fetched plots and personality transplants. So far I have not noticed much of an improvemnet yet it is early days I suppose. We still have the awful Debbie and Robbie saga, Killer Cameron etc and Kerry faking a pregnancy.

I like the Cain and Moira story and the Declan stories at Home Farm. But some of it is still full of bullies and thugs such as Robbie, Debbie, Cameron and Kerry and even Cain is worse than he used to be.

[Slade]

Some of the storylines have actually been quite good. Debbie taking Cameron's kids to Carl's grave as an attempt at scaremongering re Chas. Debbie kidnapping Chas and holding her at gunpoint. Charity almost discovering that Jai had fathered a baby with Rachel and Rishi jumping in and taking the blame to protect his son. I had mixed feelings about that. Whilst part of me wanted Charity to find out just to put her out of shape, I have to admit some scenes following in particular the sheer disbelief that Rachel would even go there was hilarious and actually had me in stitches. I think Rishi has tried to be selfless but I can't help thinking it isn't fair on his other children. Don't really give a damn how Georgia feels.

I wanted to see Debbie and Robbie get together because I think it would be different but the way Robbie's been acting, completely obsessively I don't think it would be a good idea now. I was surprised at how Debbie reacted though given that Charity revealed the truth about Robbie being behind everything. I was expecting her to tell him to get lost but she seemed to politely indicate that everything was OK regarding Kirk and he didn't need to stay over anymore. And even when he tried to kiss her earlier in the episode she didn't react anywhere near as badly as what I thought. It made me wonder whether she was feeling so isolated at the moment that she didn't want to completely cut him off because she just wanted someone there purely as a friend. I do agree with a comment that was made a while back in this thread in that Debbie does seem to get a lot of the main storylines.

Again can see both sides from the storyline re Cain and Adam. If my mother was going out with Cain, given his track record I would be extremely worried about her too and wouldn't be happy about it at all. But the way Adam was trying to get a reaction out of Cain I would have been tempted to smack him myself. As Cain pointed out in the episode, Adam is very lucky. He tried to burn Cain alive and if Aaron hadn't pleaded with Cain to have pity on him, he would be in a prison cell right now.

Don't like Vanessa but objectively speaking I do believe she is genuinely trying to help Rhona however what she is doing is incredibly stupid, especially given that Moira gave her some pretty good advice re Holly. She should just tell Paddy about everything so they can address the problem head on.

I'm at the point where I'm so tired of Kerry that I just want her to leave and never come back and now we have this fake pregnancy storyline, it means we have to put up with her for the time being.

Felt sorry for Megan when she was crying after Sean got electrocuted and Robbie ignored her when he saw her standing by the ambulance bleeding. He's an ungrateful little idiot.

[Red Ranger 1]

Wasn't that much of a surprise that Robbie was behind Debbie being stalked, surprised the truth came out so easily though.Debbie's revenge wasn't much cop, he still seems to be hanging around. Surprised Adam's suddenly best mates with him, thought he was smarter than that.Everyone at the party queuing up to tell Debbie how rubbish she is and her facing up to the fact that the entire village hates her enough to report her was quite fun.The twist that it was Sarah who indirectly alerted Social Services was one I was not expecting and a clever way of handling it.Debbie can get defensive with everyone else but having her daughter matter of factly point out that she's never there for her is difficult to refute.Don't know if this is the end of Debbie being a psycho, bit weak on one hand, bit of a relief on another.

I thought for a while that Kerry was redeemable but with the fire and now the fake pregnancy it seems we're way past that.I was hoping we'd seen the last of her when she sloped out of town so disappointing that she's back.Especially since it seems to have put the mockers on Andy and Amy just as I was liking the idea.

Have to say I didn't actually twig that Sean and Gemma were meant to have slept together, I thought they'd just kissed, so the pregnancy thing's a bit out of the blue.At least it helped her bond with Alicia...just in time for Dom to give her her marching orders.

[Slade]

Don't like Katie at all but I did enjoy the scene when she outed Declan in front of his prospective business associates. Still I thought sleeping with Adam was well below the belt given what happened with Ella and Mia. So I wasn't too fussed when Declan decided to evict Andy as punishment. I was kind of glad when Declan was almost a step ahead of her, because although he called the police he didn't tell them about the body. And when it came down to it, Katie just couldn't shop him in. Not when it meant she would end up with absolutely nothing.

Debbie continues to be the centre of everything. This time having the whole Dingle clan around her after Belle drunk the dodgy booze Debbie hid at the farm causing her to end up hospitalised. I actually really liked that scene. Especially with Debbie's realisation that she had no one. Her trying to take the kids to the airport to skip the country was absolute craziness. Fair play to Zak though for trying to help her though in spite of Lisa. I still think Cain was right warning Debbie off. This thing with her and Cameron appears to have come out of nowhere. To my knowledge Cameron was happy with Chas. The only issues he had were having access to his kids and the discovery of Alex's body at the building site becoming public knowledge. I said a while ago that Cameron would cheat on Chas but I didn't think it would be this soon and I didn't think he would go back to Debbie. I'm actually completely indifferent although I will say the same thing I did about Stella/Karl re Corrie and that is if Debbie's stupid enough to go back to him given how he treated her before thing she deserves everything she gets. I think there's potential for some exciting scenes if this comes out. Charity has already noticed that Cameron is trying to get back in Debbie's good books so she is absolutely going to hit the roof. Chas's reaction too I would imagine would be priceless. I don't dislike Chas but wouldn't mind seeing her suffer a bit given that she stole Cameron of Debbie in the first place, the way she stuck her nose in re Declan and Katie's marriage and given that she cheated on Paddy before. It's not as if she could actually do anything to Debbie and it was only a few weeks ago where Debbie held a shotgun to her head.

I'll happily admit that I've found the attempts from Rhona and Vanessa trying to conceal Rhona's drug addiction quite amusing but I think the writers are doing a really good job here. Especially so this week. There have been two occasions where Rhona's behaviour has indirectly led to repercussions for somebody else. Firstly her getting Laurel to driver her around various chemists around the local area (so she could stock up on drug supplies) which led to her being car jacked (You could argue that it was disappointing Marlon not standing up to Cain but I really don't think there was anything he could do). And then there was Rhona staging the break-in at the surgery making it look like the drugs had been stolen, with Pearl ending up taking the blame and wanting to quit her job. Although Rhona's clearly felt guilty and bad for both of them, I guess this demonstrates exactly how strong an addiction can be, almost outweighing anything else. The scene where Rhona was pleading with Vanessa to help her was very interesting indeed. Rhona obviously loves Vanessa as a friend but when Vanessa told her that she loved her back there was just something about the way she said it that made me think that possibly Vanessa could be in love with her. Also when you think back to earlier on in the episode when Vanessa was confiding in Moira and Moira made a remark about her being romantically involved with the person she was trying to help (or something like that) and Vanessa vehemently denied it. There's also the fact that Vanessa didn't want to move out of Paddy and Rhona's and when she just started living at the house she was leasing of Declan she purposely sabotaged the pipes to cause a leak so she could get out of the cooling off period within the contract. Then we have her wanting to buy into the veterinary practice in the first place. I initially thought she was going to try something underhand and steal the business of them but was that really all just to get close to Rhona?

[Red Ranger 1]

Personally, I wasn't bothered so much by the effect Katie sleeping with Adam had on Declan as the effect it had on Adam.It felt like she used him and put him in the firing line just to score a cheap point, even if it was effective in letting Declan know she wasn't coming back.Still, I guess Adam knew it was likely to annoy Declan.Disappointed Katie wimped out of calling the police since not only has Declan got away with it but it missed an opportunity to tighten the net on Cameron.

Oh god, Cameron.Nine months it's been since he whacked Carl King on the head with a big rock.Nine months of the plot not moving a smegging inch, to coin a phrase.Oh sure, every now and then there's a near miss or he threatens someone but we're no closer to anyone finding out the truth that we were at the beginning of the year.Having him suddenly decide it's Debbie he wants after all feels like a rather desperate attempt to move the pieces around a bit.It beggars belief and doesn't stop the storyline being terminally dull.

Vanessa is actually starting to seem a bit sinister.Although I cheered when she stood up to Paddy and Rhona over Pearl, her jealousy over Paddy taking Rhona away from her really does seem to be cast in a new light now.I can't tell how much of her acting as Rhona's drug pusher is genuinely trying to help her and how much is her liking being in control of her.Either way, Rhona seems to be hurtling headlong to the point of no return and if Vanessa's hoping to be her saviour then I don't think she stands a chance.

Bob and Brenda's sort-of-wedding-type-thing was actually quite sweet and funny, especially Brenda's wittering as she went down the aisle(Her "This could have been you if you'd played your cards right" to Eric was fantastic).Shame Kerry still hasn't managed to fall off a bridge.How she's still in the village is beyond me and now she's dragging Dan down:He was never the brightest spark but hooking up with a nightmare like that is a new low in terms of sensible decisions.

[Slade]

Right so let me get this straight. Cameron fesses up to killing Carl and Debbie ends up telling him that she loves him?! I did see on the front of a couple of magazines that something was going to happen with Cameron, Debbie and Gennie regarding a car accident but I never imagined that Cameron would end up murdering her. So he now claims his third victim. I guess with his case the more times you do it, the easier it becomes. Interestingly the only person he's showed true remorse for is actually Carl where you could argue out of the three he was the one who is the least deserving (killing someone previously, trying to rape Chas etc). Another thing that interests me is that Debbie like Chas is bearing the brunt for what Cameron did, unknowingly of course. This time covering for him lying about their involvement in the car crash and not even telling anyone he was with her. They say love is blind and it is especially true in this case - Cameron cheats on his former partner with Debbie, he cheats on Debbie with Chas and finishes with Debbie, kills Carl, lets Chas takes the blame go to prison and face a trial. And now he cheats on Chas with Debbie and lets her deal with the mess trying to cover up his part in the whole fiasco. A while back I said without a confession there's no way of him facing charges for this but with Gennie recording him confessing with the dictaphone in her car I do now believe that Cameron's days are numbered. And I'm assuming this will all come to light within a few weeks.

A bit confused with regards to Gennie. Surely an autopsy would reveal she was suffocated so I'm surprised the police haven't mentioned it yet. I actually found her a bit annoying towards the end so am not too bothered she's gone although I'm very surprised as I wasn't expecting her to be murdered. She should have just stayed out of it like Nikhil told her too then she would still be alive. Don't quite understand why when Cameron and Debbie ran after her, she didn't just go straight into the Woolpack.

Thought the end of Friday's episode i.e. the scene in the Woolpack with the revelation of Gennie's death was very good. Although Nikhil has annoyed me the way he is neglecting Mollie, I haven't been entirely happy with the way everyone is ganging up on him regarding it because it feels as though they aren't really empathising with his situation. Shame this happened after he bought the B&B as he won't be in any position to do anything anytime soon.

This event does seem to have had the positive (or negative) affect of reuniting the Dingle clan. Lisa seems to have put what happened with Belle to one side to support Debbie, Debbie has made an effort with Chas and Cain has reconciled with Debbie (see what I meant in my previous post about Debbie being the center of everything!). I have to say that I can't wait to see Charity and Cain's reactions assuming they find out that Cameron and Debbie are back on and are now doing the dirty on Chas.